Rob Howse

Yesterday, led by Charles Schumer of New York, a group of Senate Democrats unveiled a protectionist trade platform that, as the New York Times put it, "seek[s] to outdo Trump on trade." The platform includes taking unilateral action against our trading partners "independent from...WTO constraints&

In a recent post here, I commented on the absence of Fair and Equitable Treatment and protection against expropriation from the text on investment in the recently released (thought not finalized) Japan-EU Economic Partner Agreement (JEEPA), speculating that this might be seen as a shift to a focus on non-discrimination

The Japan-EU trade deal, the JEEPA, has many facets and implications-economic, geopolitical and legal. On its own, the text of the investment chapter merits attention.   The EU and Japan seemed to have scrapped the classic BIT/investor protection architecture as a model, and instead designed a set of disciplines that

Today, an arbitrator at the WTO awarded Mexico the right to impose trade retaliation against United States imports in the amount of 163,230,000 US. This result is the outcome of a process whereby Mexico violated its own obligations under NAFTA in suing the US at the WTO.  The

WTO scholar Chad Bown, with the Peterson Institute, has been out in front in raising the specter that some of the policies on the Trump Administration/Republican agenda, in particular the current corporate tax reform plan, could lead to immense trade retaliation under WTO rules.  I'm somewhat less

The Yukos case is among the most flamboyant investor-state arbitrations (Chevron v. Ecuador a close competitor).  Yukos reads like a paperback thriller-settling of scores between rogue oligarchs and the Putin regime with billions at stake.  Definitely worth a mini-series on HBO or Showtime. Last night at the ISDS answer to

It is a well-known story that Big Pharma aggressively uses trade negotiations, political lobbying, and domestic and international litigation (and the threat thereof) to expand the monopoly rents it gains from patent protection, and defeat the effort of states to limit intellectual property rights in the public interest, whether through

Given my concerns about ISDS and its effects on the policy space of states, sometimes people are surprised to learn that I have consulted to the investor's counsel in a number of these disputes.  The fact is, though, that sometimes the investor happens to be the good guy,

An ICSID Annulment Committee's decision to reduce the damages to be paid to Exxon (Mobil) by $1.4 billion seems like a cause for celebration-a victory of economic sovereignty over Big Oil.  But as gifts to economic justice go, this one is a Trojan horse indeed. Now there

Spring break is upon us at NYU and I'm making a big push to finish an essay on the design of a multilateral investment court along the lines of the initiative that Canada and the EU are now undertaking.  One of the big transitional issues is this:  since